Eri:Too bad you don't make any sense. There is no downside to bringing the games here. Only an upside. An upside on many fronts.

There's no downside from where you are sitting as an outside observer. You are only seeing a fraction of the picture. You have NO idea if there was no downside, as you are only speaking from your very, very limited perspective. There might had been a HUGE downside for the company if you were a shareholder or an executive who actually made this decision. We don't really have all the information, and probably never will, so it is remarkably ignorant to assume that there was no downside to this decision.

Note that I am not making any assumptions about this decision being right. I am only saying that you cannot say there were no downsides, since you do not know the inter workings of Nintendo of America. All we can conclude is that the executives and shareholders of NoA thought this was a good decision for whatever reason.

I'm in Europe, and while I do sympathise with those folks out west for losing out on these games, I do wonder if Operation Rainfall are knocking on the wrong door for this. See if Nintendo of Europe are the ones taking a big gamble localising, perhaps the pressure should be on them to "share their work", so to speak, with NoA. Or, if that's a bust, to publish the games themselves, possibly through a third party.

I know there are probably a hundered different reasons why the latter wouldn't work, and I'll probably see them all in the replies. But if you look at the release history of games on the Wii and DS, you'll see that NoE and NoA seem to work on localisation of games independently(two good cases of this are the Advance Wars series, especially the Dark Conflict/Days of Ruin title, and the Professor Layton series). This could be a chance for NoE to really step up to the plate, and show NoA how it's done.

And great work Jim. I like the points of these articles, even if the joke of the "persona" is lost on some people.

It's this over idealized postulations of these corporations that kill me. Nintendo, Sony, MS... all of these guys... they aren't here to make you happy. They don't care what you want or think. They are here to cut a profit.

You miss the point so I'll break it down.I had money.They wanted money.

They had games.I wanted games.

Now in math.Money x Games = ?Where: Games = Zero.

They don't care about me, I don't care about them very much right now.They still own the equivalent of 47 solid gold planets and I'm an angry forum poster busy exercising my freedom of expression to other like minded bitter forum poster that happened to want these games.

Now I think we are having very different conversations here so I can give you my entire point in like 6 words."They did not take my money."The end, there is nothing more to be gleaned from this data. The potential for money existed they chose to pay for that potential, and then not release the game.

meh doesn't bother me I was a nintendo fan boy until the wii came out saw that they clearly had no intention of putting out games for my kind and moved on and I refuse to come crawling back just because they put out on or 2 more good games they lost me the second they stoped making games for gamers

Well, sometimes you need to think outside the box. Look Demon's Souls for example, Sony don't to publish the game in America (Demon's Souls is a Sony property), Atlus did it and it's the best selling game ever for Atlus.

Okay, okay, hold on. You're treating the company like just because they have a shitload of money, and just because they're in it to make more, they always know what's best for themselves. This is simply not the case. Take the whole recent American economic downturn, for example. The mistakes that led up to that were largely perpetrated by people who had a shit ton of money, and who were doing what they thought was in the best interests of making more. And while they did make more, that doesn't mean that it was the best decision they could've gone with at the time.

And I get that you're just saying that Nintendo has its reasons. But I don't think that those reasons are necessarily "good" just because you say so. Maybe they do have a plan in mind. But business models fail all the time, and this particular one seems to be going out of their way to bet on some clandestine Xanatos gambit rather than, you know, just giving their consumers what they want. You can't honestly tell me that sounds smart.

You know what, though? You're right on one point: Nintendo isn't here to be our friends. No one is saying they are, though. Consumers want things and businesses deliver. That's how the economy works. In this particular example, though, consumers want things and Nintendo is denying them, despite the fact that this particular chunk of consumers is easily Nintendo's largest. They're in the business to sell games. Except they're not doing that. I don't see how that could ever be good for business. It would be like a doctor who doesn't see patients. Ever. He just sits in his clinic all day and plays Sudoku.

Fullmetalfox:Guys this is actually a good thing!Remember when Sega released the SegaCD/MegaCD and refused to support their system, and then nobody gave a fuck about the Saturn and the Dreamcast? Remember Sega had to leave the hardware business and focus only on games because they couldn't afford another console?Well same here. People are gonna remember this stupidity and refrain from buying the Wii U, as a result Nintendo is gonna have to drop the hardware business and we will finally have Donkey Kong on the PS4.It may piss you off now, but when you don't need to buy another console only to play the next Zelda/Mario game, you'll be happy.Good times ahead!Thank you Nintendo of America!

Hey, I'd actually would be happy if that happened. I'd love to play a Zelda game, but there is no way I'm going to buy a $150 paperweight to play those games. So I'd love to play a Zelda game on other platforms.

Honestly, I wouldn't expect it anytime soon, but I do think Nintendo is expecting too much from the Wii U. Its a next generation console that is as powerful as the PS3 and 360 (allegedly), but will likely be going up against the PS4 and 720 before long. Sure the Wii U will be able to play games like Dark Siders 2 and others, but we can already play those games on the PS3s and 360s we already own. Why would anyone buy a Wii U for those?That's just my two cents, though.

Whoo boy, I can't wait for "The Game Overthinker" to take Nintendos balls out of his mouth long enough to say we are all idiots for wanting Nintendo to release these games.

I saw that chart as well, and its insane that they ignore it. Hell, if anything its showing that those games shouldn't be bothered to be released IN Japan, only everywhere else, as multiple instances had the NA copies selling 2-3 times more than Japanese copies.

Plus, at least in The Last Storys defense, it has a MAJOR driving force behind it. Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu. Creator of the Final Fantasy series, and one of the gods of gaming music, and both of which well-known outside of Japan as well for these things.

Xenoblade on the other hand? Well, I'm a big fan of Xenogears and the Xenosaga games... so it isn't much of a hard sell for me with this game.

At this point I think Nintendo knows that the people who grew up playing their NES and SNES are now old enough to import games for the current generation. This may be counter to your mention of how Animal Crossing was blocked for import however, at this point I can think of 3 websites off the top of my head where I can import games and have actually imported to play the games NoJ wouldn't let me have (to be fair: Fist of the North Star was never popular in the U.S. and, JUMP Ultimate Stars would have been a legal nightmare)

At this point there are more Japanese exclusive 3DS games (example) that I want than U.S. releases. Not to mention the fact that the foreign systems are finally releasing new console colors (and always have had more color options) and it would seem to me Nintendo is encouraging people to get online and import.

As much as I like Nintendo for what they've done for the industry, they will forever infuriate me with their nonsensical, even wilfully self-damaging decisions. Release these games Nintendo, hell, localise all games! You never know what will become a cult classic or a runaway success unless you try.

Also, it's strange that we in the UK are getting these games and not America. It used to be the other way around: I remember having to import Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6 and Secrets of Mana from the US because NoE just eternally dragged their heels over them.

NoE's poor localization policy is one of the main reasons Sega did better than Nintendo in Europe. The other, is advertisement... why have I heard nothing about these 3 games??

My first Jimquisition and whaat? You may make some good points but I won't be a regular follower for the totally childish way you express those points. I can't help but think you sound like a spoiled brat, like, say, Dudley from Harry Potter. It also feels like you may have ignored totally valid reasons Nintendo may have for not bringing out their games elsewhere.

They did the same thing with earthbound and the rest of the Mother series. They won't even release earthbound on the virtual console, due to fairly minor legal reasons. Maybe its time they grow some balls.

I wasn't really a fan of Jim at first, he's been pretty hit and miss for me, but I wanted to watch this one and...well...it was a good episode. I laughed, I thought about stuff, I had fun watching it, and it compelled me to write this comment.

I don't even care about these three titles and I'm still in support of them being released. And I know what it's like to fight for a game like this (I'm one of the wee crowd currently fighting for Ace Attorney Investigations 2) so yeah. Good episode, I hope things work out in the end.

They obviously just want casual gamers and kids, not ardent fans that have grown up with their systems. It will be the demise of the company because I'm sorry NoA, the Facebook devs are blowning you out of the water in that regard.

ok can i just add this seems more like a japanese thing in general? they way i see it this is no different than the manga and anime industry that love to not release 90% of the manga that come out of japan, i meant really this happens a lot where good games manga and anime made in japan never see a western release and there are no explanations really available to give the fanbase over here.

"clitgiraffe."... I'll have to remember that one. Not quite as good as douchecanoe, but still...

O.T.: Reminds me of Patapon. I remember when I was a youngin' to the internet, I only really went to a very small forum with a handful of members. There was one time where we were talking about the upcoming release of Patapon, and I said I thought it'd do crazy well. One person noted the Japanese numbers and said he doubted it'd do much better here in the US, but it ended up outselling God of War: Chains of Olympus for some time.

i have the exact same problem with monster hunter freedom 3 which i'll have to wait a year for the POSSIBLE eu/na localisation either that or we'll get a giant fuck you in a similar style to frontier or g

This is exactly the reason why I hate Nintendo as of late and the reason I never bought a Wii. If they're not gonna bring over games from Japan that I, and a lot of other gamers, actually want to play just because it's 'hard' then fuck them.

A friend of mine went to Japan and played some of the games there and was sad and mad that she will never get to play them here because they will never see the light of day here. It just irritates me that Nintendo would be this stupid and not localize them here and make their fan base happy.

This shit has made me really regret owning a Wii. It's been basically a useless brick for the past year, and got only sporadic use before that. It keeps not getting any worthwhile games of any description. I'm seriously considering modding the thing because region-locks are retarded anyway and all the even remotely interesting games (few as they are) seem to never be coming here. They even continue to short-change us on the fucking virtual console (Japan's is roughly twice as large at this point). I'm pretty sure the entire library of Wii games worth playing is less than half the number of good gamecube games I own, which is itself only about half of that system's library of great titles. Hell the Dreamcast had a better library at the end of its second year than the Wii does now.

Stall:I'm sorry, but this is just pathetic. Okay, so you don't agree with a business decision they made. That's fine, but there is no need to be an immature prick about it. I'm sorry that you've just now arrived at the crushing realization that Nintendo isn't in the game to be your BFF, and actually tend to do their own things with the intent of what would be best for the company and shareholders because the entire rasion d'etre of a corporation is to maximize profits for the shareholders: NOT to make you happy and be your BFF. Odds say NDA didn't do this out of spite: they had a legitmate reason for not bring these games over.

Sometimes Jim Sterling can make a good point, but this episode is just beyond pathetic. It's like a little kid getting mad about realizing that gaming companies aren't our friends. Be a god damn realist about this, would you?

Well under that logic I'm gonna go to work and refuse to do my job. The company makes enough money, they don't really need me doing anything.

If they refuse to localize games, which is their entire point of existing, then they should be fired even if the company doesn't really need to money that the localization would bring. What kind of arrogant prick sits back and says "Nah we don't need any more money. We're good."